House of Mystery #169 (1967)
by Otto Binder & Jim Mooney
Well that’s certainly a different transformation!
Liddleville must be a small place indeed if Suzy is impressed by having a movie theater AND a bank in the same town.
You know the drill: the hero exploits the crowd going into panic in order to get into costume…
…but Robby is caught transforming!!!
So Robby turns into Velocity Kid. That’s a terrible costume, but at least super-speed is a cool power right?
Well, Robby manages to make super-speed look lame. Maybe he should’ve been Ambulance Kid with that siren!
Once again, Robby has no problem dealing with the villain’s goons…
…and once again we have a supervillain with the most random weapons.
Honestly Toymaster manages to make Toyman look ALMOST a good villain by comparison.
Not only the siren looks stupid, it’s also a massive weak point.
So far the story has been following all the typical Dial H tropes. But this is when it turns into something different, once Suzy reveals she discovered the secret.
You’d expect Suzy would turn into a confidante for the hero, right?
Nope! Instead she resorts to outright blackmail unless Robby lets her use the H-Dial!!!
That’s an unexpected development; up to this point Suzy was your stereotypical good girl next door, so her having this dark side is a welcome twist.
Robby deciding to have her dial H.E.R.O.I.NE. instead of H.E.R.O. brings up sooooo many questions. What would happen if she dialed H.E.R.O., would she turn into a male superhero?
Not to be confused with dialing H.E.R.O.I.N., which has completely different effects.
But no, Suzy instead turns into Gem Girl.
So the story turns its focus to HER, because Robby can’t fly as Velocity Kid and he can’t turn into another superhero immediately.
I’m not doing a full breakdown of Gem Girl’s powers like I do for Robby’s transformations, but she’s incredibly versatile.
You know something tells me Suzy is a big fan of Wonder Woman.
Just a hunch.
In order to rescue Suzy, Robby finally manages to get a useful transformation.
Not a huge fan of his weird eyes, though he does have the power to see a mental image of tied-up girls wearing tight-fitting clothes.
Little known fact: Wonder Woman has exactly the same power.
He can also teleport, a power that I expected to see much sooner.
So Robby rescues Gem Girl…
…and takes back his own series.
Not if Gem Girl has anything to say about it!
The cover scene makes it into the comic, which isn’t always guaranteed.
This means Robby has to save her…
…but she SOMEHOW ends up butting heads with Toymaster? WTF!?
The police takes care of Toymaster, so there’s the issue of turning Gem Girl back into Suzy.
I’m extremely annoyed Robby doesn’t specify if he’s dialing O.R.E.H. or E.N.I.O.R.E.H
I would have accepted Astro Man to have telepathy and remove Suzy’s memory of the adventure, rather than an extremely convenient partial amnesia!
Susy WILL turn into a superheroine again, but that’s a continuity insert (which I’ll still cover).
Historical significance: 0/10
The reset button is pressed HARD. This could have been a turning point for the series, but Suzy is never seen again.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
How does Toymaster have all those absurd weapons? Who knows, he’s never seen again! Also, Susy being THIS ready to blackmail Robby brings back the tone of the Lois Lane series.
Does it stand the test of time?: 3/10
Otto Binder and Al Plastino on a story featuring a naïve teen superheroine SHOULD be a slam dunk. But “Gem Girl” ends up being quite uninteresting. It also fails as a potential exploration of what happens when someone who is not ready to be a superhero gets powers, because Suzy’s blunders seem to be quite random. And of course it’s quite hard to have the main conflict of the story be resolved by a very convenient amnesia without bringing down the quality.
Dial S for SOCKAMAGEE! : 71
Probably because the story doesn’t focus on him much, Robby uses the catchphrase only once.
Dial I for superhero identities: 35
Adding Velocity Kid and Astro Man. This category is ONLY for Robby’s transformations. In fact, the other ones are reserved for…
Dial O for other superhero identities: 1
Gem Girl is the first superhero created by the H-Dial that is not Robby!
Dial C for the superpowers count: 58
Velocity Kid doesn’t add anything, since flight and super-speed were already in the count. But Astro Man adds teleportation (weird it took this long!) and what I assume is remote vision.
Dial D for dialing options: 5
We have H.E.R.O.I.N.E., which doesn’t seem to require E.N.I.O.R.E.H. to be undone.
Interesting letters: Yankee Doddle Kid had the best costume? REALLY? It’s not even symmetrical, which is apparently hot.
I don’t know how old the letter writer is, but… Suzy is like 15, so it’s kind of weird to see the editor respond like that.
I think a version of the Toymaster appeared in SUPERFRIENDS THE LEGENDARY SUPER POWER SHOW (1984) where he got Puppet Master’s ability to use magic clay to brainwash the Superfriends (Supes, Wonder Woman, Firestorm, Batman and Robin) until El Dorado saves the day.
I forgot most of Superfriends (mercifully) but I’m pretty sure that’s the Toyman; one of the Superfriends seasons used the costume of the second Toyman. I think I touched on that in my review of the first Toyman story.
Suzy is never seen again, eh?
I guess Robbie decided that she Knew Too Much and indulged himself by dialling V.I.L.L.A.I.N.